Liquid thickening/stabilizing techniques are industrially very important. For example, thickening/stabilizing of aqueous components in metastable emulsions, such as mayonnaise and salad dressing, allows the metastable emulsions to maintain their emulsion states stably over a long time. For the thickening/stabilizing techniques, various thickening/stabilizing agents have been developed. For example, alkyl acrylate copolymers are known as thickening/stabilizing agents for aqueous media (aqueous vehicles).
In contrast, 12-hydroxystearic acid is known as a thickening/stabilizing agent for fluid organic substances such as oily media and other organic substances having fluidity (e.g., Patent Literature (PTL) 1), where 12-hydroxystearic acid is mainly used for waste disposal of edible oils. However, 12-hydroxystearic acid is unadjustable in degree of gelling and can only bring the target component into either a completely solidified state or a liquid state as remaining as intact.